Light trucks such as pickup trucks and station wagons have incorporated an all glass rear door which includes hinges disposed at the top of the door for pivotal upward movement. During normal driving conditions, these rear doors are typically in the closed position. When open, the doors extend outward from the junction of the rear opening of the vehicle and the roof of the vehicle. As a result, the door can get in the way when loading cargo into the back of the vehicle. Specifically, the position of the hinges and the connection of the top edge of the door to the roof presents a restriction to the rear opening of the vehicle. As a result, large items such as all terrain vehicles, motorcycles and bicycles cannot be easily loaded due to the height restriction.
In order to overcome the disadvantages of rear doors that are merely pivotally connected to the roof of the vehicle at an upper edge of the door as discussed above, the so-called "slide-over" rear doors were developed. A slide-over rear door does not include a fixed hinged connection between the top edge of the door and the rear portion of the roof of the vehicle. Instead, the roof typically includes a pair of parallel tracks which slidably accommodate a protruding hinge member disposed along an upper edge of the door. Gas props are used at opposing sides of the rear opening to assist in the pivotal outward movement of the door. Once the door has been pivoted outward, it is slid backwards as the protruding members of the hinges slide towards the front of the vehicle in the tracks.
While the slide-over rear door is an improvement over the rear doors that include a simple hinge connection disposed along the top edge of the rear door, slide-over rear doors have not been provided for all glass rear doors. Specifically, slide-over rear doors have been limited to those doors which include a central panel made of the see-through glass or plexiglass mounted within a solid or opaque outer frame. The gas props are connected between the outer frame and the vehicle or shell. The incorporation of an outer frame has been deemed necessary because of the lack of appropriate sliding hinge connection between an all glass rear door and the available track configurations. Further, there has been a lack of appropriate connection mechanism between the gas props and an all glass rear door.
Yet another disadvantage with slide-over rear doors in general is the distance between the rear door and the roof of the vehicle when the door is in the fully open position. Specifically, in currently available designs, there is a space of several inches between the door and the roof of the vehicle or cap when the door is in the fully-open position. This wasted several inches has proven to be very inconvenient for shorter consumers who have great difficulty in reaching upward and grabbing the door before pulling the door down to the fully closed position.
Hence, there is a need for a slide-over rear door with an improved design that enables all glass rear doors to be utilized with a slide-over connection further which limits the amount of space or clearance between the door and the roof of the cap, shell or vehicle when the door is in the fully open position.